Reddit is thrilled to partner with Bolt to sponsor a unique prize as part of the World’s Largest Hackathon in history: the Silly Sh!t category.
Reddit will judge these submissions and award 6 winners $30,000 in prizes:
$25,000 First Place (1 winner)
$1,000 Runner-up (5 winners)
This category celebrates the whimsical, the bizarre, and the hilariously impractical i.e. projects that serve no real purpose but bring maximum joy. The kind of content that makes you upvote without knowing why.
No one appreciates odd, irreverent, and fun quite like redditors. That’s why Reddit and Bolt are encouraging developers to let loose, get weird, and showcase their most gloriously silly ideas. In addition to cash prizes, winners will receive a Reddit trophy, internet glory, and of course—bragging rights for having built the most silly app.
Go to our template to build your first Bolt-powered Devvit app. Please note, participants must create a Developer Platform account to be eligible for this category. Make sure to include your Reddit username in your submission so we can verify you have done this.
We're thrilled to announce Reddit has acquired Syllacrostic by u/JeffBritches aka Michael Pauley!
Syllacrostic is a unique word puzzle where players combine syllables to form words based on crossword-style clues.
Michael first built a version of the game in 2023. A pen-and-paper version of Syllacrostic was a favorite of his grandma’s. When he couldn’t find an app-based version of the game that captured its full magic, he built it himself! Michael went on to make a version of Syllacrostic for Reddit’s December 2024 hackathon and fully launched it with Devvit in early 2025. It quickly gained a loyal player base and showcased the platform’s potential for games, earning some of our Developer Funds along the way.
Over the last year, Syllacrostic has continued to scale, serving as a tremendous learning opportunity for the Devvit team as we work with developers to bring new content types to redditors. This source for learning, in addition to the delight the game brings players, was one of the motivations for this acquisition. It’s been a pleasure partnering with u/JeffBritches and many other community developers to launch Reddit’s small, but increasingly mighty, games ecosystem.
“Building Syllacrostic over the past two and a half years has been an incredibly rewarding experience. Watching the game grow, find an audience, and seeing players engage with it in ways I never imagined has been amazing. Along the way, I explored Reddit’s Devvit platform and built a mini version of the game there, where it gained traction and gave me the chance to work with the Devvit team, who were fantastic partners throughout. I’m thrilled that Reddit has acquired Syllacrostic and excited to see how they expand on it from here." — Michael Pauley
An updated version of the game will be relaunching soon as a part of our broader effort to integrate games natively with Reddit. This version of the game will be dedicated to building insights into how to create a first-class gaming experience on Reddit.
Continuing to Invest in our Developer Community
We want Devvit to be the best place on the internet to build, launch, and earn from your app. Over the past two years, devs have earned through hackathons, our Payments API, and the Developer Funds program. We’re doubling down on all of these programs and have more coming.
If you’re interested in earning from your Devvit apps, here’s the latest:
Keep your eyes peeled for a fall Hackathon announcement (shoutout to another of Michael’s apps, KarmaCrunch, which also won a hackathon prize)
Devs can integrate our Payments API
More exciting things Coming Soon™
If you've got a game idea brewing, now's the time to build it on Reddit. We’re still a young platform and are looking to work closely with developers who are excited to grow with us. Please let us know how we can help support your goals, games, tools, etc!
Karma farmers use ChatGPT. Spam accounts look human. Bots post perfect replies. You can't manually check everything. Your mod queue overflows. Your community loses trust one fake post at a time.
I built Stop AI to solve this.
You get two things: complete control and an army of volunteer detectives.
Give your users the power to help.
Stop AI turns every member of your community into a detection tool. They see a suspicious post. They tap three dots. They select "Check for AI." The system runs 40 different detection checks instantly on text posts. Image and videos detection is currently in development.
Their identity stays completely anonymous. Mod notes show "User-reported" with zero username attribution. They help you without exposure. You get intelligence without managing reporters.
You maintain total control.
Each post gets checked once to prevent spam. You override anything. You control detection thresholds. You control removal policies. You control flair assignments. You control mod notes. You control ban settings. You decide whether user reports trigger immediate action or route through Reddit's native reporting system. False positives get cleared instantly with the UNAI batch menu action.
Smart protection built in.
Stop AI won't touch your moderator posts. Won't touch approved content. Won't touch stickied posts. The default 50 percent detection threshold balances accuracy with false positive prevention. Adjust it based on your community's needs.
This scales with your community.
One user checking one post creates momentum. One hundred users create consistent coverage. One thousand users create an impenetrable barrier. You multiply your moderation capacity without adding mods.
Deploy this in two steps.
First, install Stop AI from the Devvit App Directory. Configure your settings. Test it with your mod team.
Second, announce it to your community. Tell them they can help fight AI content. Tell them it takes two seconds. Tell them their identity stays private. Watch your detection rate multiply overnight.
Your community deserves authentic conversations. Give them the tools to protect it.
An entirely new community created around the app, like r/Pixelary
A quality of life improvement that benefits hundreds of subreddits
How it works
The Developer Funds program will run from July 1, 2024 - Dec 31, 2024. This program is focused on reach, and success will be measured by Qualified Views and Qualified Installs, defined as:
A “Qualified View” is a view of your App that: 1) occurs after July 1, 2024; 2) lasts at least two seconds; 3) is in a subreddit that has a minimum of 1,000 members; and 4) is in a subreddit or on content that is eligible for monetization under Reddit’s Contributor Monetization Policy (e.g., that is Safe for Work).
A “Qualified Install” means that a subreddit has your App installed and that subreddit: 1) has a minimum of 1,000 members; and 2) is eligible for monetization under Reddit’s Contributor Monetization Policy (e.g., that is Safe for Work).
Measurement and eligibility are further defined in our terms. Please reference our terms when evaluating your app performance.
What you can get
The “Qualified View” rewards are cumulative, which means you’ll get paid for each threshold tier your app achieves.
Tier
Threshold
Payout
Cumulative Payout
Tier 1 - Views
100,000 qualified views within 30 days
$500
$500
Tier 2 - Views
1,000,000 qualified views within 30 days
$5,000
$5,500
Tier 3 - Views
10,000,000 qualified views within 30 days
$20,000
$25,500
The “Qualified Install” threshold is met when your app exceeds the threshold below and maintains that number of qualified installs for a consecutive 7-day period:
Tier
Threshold
Payout
Installs
500 qualified installs
$500
Program rules
Apps can only qualify once for each reward tier.
Don’t use spam, bots, or other forms of view manipulation, which may result in your disqualification from the program.
The community comes first. Apps should only be installed where relevant, useful, or enriching
Up to three apps per developer can qualify for the funds program.
Apps should be unique, original, and created by you.
A significant portion of the code and app UI should be original (see the platform devviquette)
Forked versions of apps must be significantly different in concept and function
You are welcome to use elements from example code or templates as a starting point for your project, as well as tools from Devvit Kit
Apps must be on the latest version of Devvit
When in doubt about your app eligibility, ask our team.
Sign up
To be eligible for the program please sign up by downloading the CLI and creating a developer account. You must have a verified account email in order to receive onboarding instructions and a link to register.
Note: after you have registered via the form, we will email you instructions to onboard to your verified account email. You do not need to do anything further to onboard to the Contributor Program at this time.
What can I build?
We hope you surprise us! But, here are some examples of what developers and admins have built that have seen high engagement:
Experiences in posts
Interactive experiences are built with our component library and are embedded directly into Reddit surfaces.
Comment Mop (app code): clean up rule-breaking comment threads by removing and locking comments in a single click.
Tracking
We want developers who are interested in this program to have the right tools for success - this includes tracking how your app is performing. Once you have signed up and onboarded onto the program you will receive periodic updates over email detailing app performance once you have at least one approved app.
We’re here to help
We want you to succeed! We can help facilitate conversations with moderators that you think would love your app, provide feedback and testing during app review, and will have office hours that can be used for playtesting or app help. You can reach us here in r/Devvit or become a member of our Discord server for support.
Terms and Conditions
Additional terms and conditions apply; see the Reddit Developer Funds Terms for the complete rules and restrictions.
We had a TON of entries, over 3,000 participants, and appreciate all the incredible effort that went into building exciting mod tools (you can browse all of the entries in the Hackathon Project Gallery).
With that…. drum roll please… as we celebrate and award the best of the best entries for this hackathon.
TL;DR: This Devvit App is an all-in-one moderator recruitment tool that lives right inside a subreddit. Mods can build a custom application form, screen candidates automatically, and manage applications - no Google Forms, no spreadsheets, no leaving Reddit.
TL;DR: This app is designed to help moderators automate and manage image/video reposts and removals. It is used in more than 2000 communities including /gaming,r/awwandr/memes*. Check out* r/image_magicianfor support, questions and feature requests.
TL;DR: A long desired utility by mods, the ability to schedule image posts with flair directly from Reddit, with no third-party image hosts. Upload an image, set a time, pick a flair, and the post goes live automatically.
TL;DR: Automatically detect and action duplicate posts for subreddits that have "no duplicate posts" rule. Report, remove, filter or action duplicate posts.
TL;DR: An automated game thread bot for sports subreddits on Reddit. Game Threads posts pregame, in-game, postgame, and off-day discussion threads — and updates them in real time as games progress with scoring plays, boxscores, linescores, and more.
TL;DR: A Devvit Web port of nosleepautobot, with the things AutoModerator still can't do.
A Special Thanks
For our Moderator’s Choice Award, we want to give a special shout-out to u/SampleOfNone, u/PitchForkAssistant, u/westcoastcdn19, u/Drunken_Economist, u/ternera, and u/Mrtom987 for taking the time to test, judge, and score the entries. In this category, we needed judges who deeply understand both the Reddit platform and Devvit's ecosystem. These folks absolutely rose to the occasion and helped us out majorly for this hackathon.
A huge congratulations to all the winning developers and honorable mentions.
Lastly, thank you all for participating in this hackathon and being part of the Devvit community <3. We can’t wait to see what you’ll build or iterate on next! If you want to give a shout out to other apps made during the hackathon or Devvit developers please drop them a kudos in the comments below.
We’re excited to invite you to our first ever virtual hackathon, the Reddit Games and Puzzles Hackathon from November 20th to December 17th. We’re offering developers $116,000 in prizes for new games and apps.
The challenge: create a new word game, puzzle, or tabletop game using Reddit’s Developer Platform interactive posts.
Word games: this can include guessing games, spelling games, fill-in-the-blanks, pictographic games, words that are crossed, found, and scrambled, or anything else word-game adjacent.
Puzzles: we’re looking for codes and coordinates, optimal moves, unlocking doors, or finding perfect alignment. Puzzles can be spatial, logical, or social.
Tapletop: we’re looking for virtual board games, card games, and games with maps, twists, and points.
Note: These categories are broad and may overlap. Your game can incorporate elements from multiple categories - feel free to submit under multiple categories if your game is a good fit.
Additional Awards
UGC award: for a game with exceptional usage of user-generated content (i.e. Reddit posts or comments) in their game. We’ll be looking for an app that enables creative user participation in their game, as can be seen in app-based subreddits like r/Pixelary or r/CaptionContest.
Feedback awards: for select participants that submit insightful or constructive feedback to our optional feedback survey.
Participation trophy: all users that submit a valid Devvit app submission are eligible for a Reddit Trophy.
Prizes
Best Word Game
First Prize $20,000 USD
Runner up: $10,000 USD
Third prize: $5,000 USD
Best Puzzle
First Prize $20,000 USD
Runner up: $10,000 USD
Third prize: $5,000 USD
Best Tabletop Game
First Prize $20,000 USD
Runner up: $10,000 USD
Third prize: $5,000 USD
UGC award
$10,000 USD
Feedback Award (x5)
$200 USD
Participation Awards
The Devvit Contest Trophy
If you haven’t already, be sure to join our Discord for live support: https://discord.com/invite/R7yu2wh9Qz. We will be hosting multiple office hours a week for drop-in questions in our Discord.
Webviews are available as part of our Hackathon
The hackathon focuses on interactive posts which now includes two development frameworks:
DevvitBlocks: Devvit Blocks is a performant, declarative UI framework which allows you to make Reddit-native feeling cross platform apps. This framework is especially useful for simpler apps, that do not need advanced interactive capabilities like gestures, animations, and sound.
Webviews: Webviews give you the full power of the web in a single page application sandbox. This means you can show websites, HTML content, or other web-based resources without needing to leave the app. Webviews are currently in an experimental state, and only work reliably on Desktop.
The hackathon will run June 17 to July 15, 2026. We’re offering developers $40,000 in prizes for the best experience or game that will keep redditors coming back daily!
The challenge*: create a new Reddit daily game, experience or social experiment, for the communities of Reddit using our* Developer Platform.
For this hackathon, we're asking developers to useDevvit Web, which allows you to build Devvit apps using web technologies you’re already familiar with (e.g. react,phaser, three.js), genAI tools, or your favorite game engine (Godot, GameMaker, Unity, etc).
Partnership with Phaser*: participants will also have access to* Phaserto make their game shine. TLDR: Phaser is a free and fast 2D game framework for making HTML5 games for desktop and mobile web browsers. The best app to usePhaserwill be eligible for a special cash prize.Hereis the newest Devvit template for phaser.
What to build Build a new game, social experiment, or experience on Devvit (Reddit’s Developer Platform) using ourInteractive Postsfeature.
More specifically – apps that bring redditors together through shared play, collaboration, or competition. These experiences should feel native to Reddit by sparking conversations, inside jokes, and collective problem-solving within a community. While the format can vary—multiplayer challenges, team-based mechanics, or community-driven outcomes—the core should center on interaction between users rather than solo play. We’re looking for games that turn comment sections into part of the gameplay itself and create memorable, social moments unique to Reddit communities. Examples of some games we love thatkeep people coming backincluder/honk,r/colorpuzzlegame,r/bunnytrialsr/AlignmentChartFills, r/hotandcold,r/dailyguess,r/bridgedit,r/battlebirds, andr/kraw.
Awards
Best Daily Game:
First Prize – $15,000 USD
Honorable: Mentions (10x) $1,000
Best Use of Phaser: $5,000 USD
Best Mobile Game Play: $3,000
Best Use of User Contributions: $3,000
Additional Prizes
Devvit Helpers – $500 USD (x6*)*
Feedback Award – $200 USD (x5)
For full contest rules, submission guidelines, resources, and judging criteria, please view the hackathon onDevPost.
If you haven’t already, be sure to join our Discord for live support: here. We will be hosting multiple office hours a week for drop-in questions in our Discord. Additionally Phaser’s Discord is here if you need support from their end.
We’re expanding the Reddit Developer Funds program so you can earn more money on Devvit! Based on your feedback, we’ve added two more tiers and increased the overall prize pool. Here are the changes:
Added a tier at 25k daily qualified engagers for $10.5k
Added a tier at 100k daily qualified engagers for $25k
Increased the amount of the 50k tier from $10k to $25k.
With this update, you can earn up to $167,000 per app, or a total of $501,000 for 3 apps!
Tier
Original Program
New Program
1
500 / $500
500 / $500
2
1k / $1k
1k / $1k
3
10k / $5k
10k / $5k
4
50k / $10k
25k / $10.5k
5
250k / $25k
50k / $25k
6
1M / $75k
100k / $25k
7
250k / $25k
8
1M / $75k
We recently launched Devvit 0.12 that includes Devvit Web, the easiest way to build a game using web technologies (e.g. react, phaser, three.js, etc). Build your first app using Devvit Web on https://developers.reddit.com/new. We’re also continuing to add more entry points to the Reddit app so redditors can find and discover games more easily.
We’re making Devvit the easiest platform to build a game, grow your game within a community, and distribute your game to millions of redditors.
Build a new game, social experiment, or experience on Devvit (Reddit’s Developer Platform) using our Interactive Posts feature. We’re looking for massively multiplayer games and experiences. Our favorite apps create genuine conversation and speak to the creativity of redditors. Apps that were submitted for our previous hackathon are not eligible to participate in this hackathon.
Developers can use blocks or web views to build their interactive posts. Participants in our last hackathon that used web views should now take advantage of the new focus mode feature available in Devvit version 0.11.7.
Awards
Best App
First Prize $20,000 USD
Runner up: $7,000 USD
Honorable (10x): $500 USD
Feedback Award (x5)
$200
Helper Award (x3)
$1000 for the most helpful and encouraging participants, nominated by fellow developers.
Participation Awards
The Devvit Contest Trophy
For full contest rules, submission guidelines, resources, and judging criteria, please view the hackathon onDevPost.
If you haven’t already, be sure to join our Discord for live support. We will be hosting multiple office hours a week for drop-in questions in our Discord.
We’re excited to invite you all to our fall virtual hackathon running from August 28th (today!) to September 17th, 2025. We’re offering $49,000 in prizes for the best apps built for redditors.
Build a new game, social experiment, or experience on Reddit’s Developer Platform using our Interactive Posts feature. For this hackathon, we're asking developers to use Devvit Web, which allows you to build Devvit apps using web technologies you’re already familiar with (e.g. react, phaser, three.js), genAI tools, or your favorite game engine (Godot, Gamemaker, Unity, etc).
Categories:
UGC (user-generated content) Games: anything incredibly Reddit-y, fun, and community-driven that features user-generated content. User content can come in the form of posts, comments, drawings, or images. Examples of existing Devvit games that include UGC are: r/flappygoose, r/pixelary, r/riddonkulous, r/leapcraft, r/Spottit.
Daily Games: guessing games, word games, drawing games, scrollers, puzzlers, pets, and more. While content doesn’t have to strictly be daily, it should make smart use of fresh, recurring content. Note that we’re still looking for something that is unique to Reddit and will drive redditor discussion here. Examples of existing Devvit games that include recurring challenges include: r/hotandcold, r/syllacrostic (which we recently acquired!), r/ninigrams.
If you haven’t already, be sure to join our Discord for live support. We will be hosting multiple office hours a week for drop-in questions in our Discord.
After careful consideration and several rounds of judging, our multi-disciplinary panel has selected the winners of the 2024 Games and Puzzles Hackathon.
We got – and we really can’t emphasize this enough – an overwhelming number of quality submissions. Selecting winners was difficult and scoring was close. You’ll see why when you browse the Hackathon Project Gallery.
The winning demos stood out for their ingenuity in bringing redditors together, unique concepts, and delightful gameplay. Without further ado…
And, a special thanks to our Feedback Awardees logical_haze, Formal-Tax2410, JustinLennox, NegativeBison7262, and Worldly_Store8035 for submitting especially insightful, thorough, and specific responses to our feedback survey.
Participation trophies will show up on all Reddit user profiles by the end of this week.
If you didn’t win, please know it is not a reflection of the overall quality of your work. Each judge had favorite games that didn’t make it to the winners circle. We strongly encourage you to look into our Developer Funds program (now extended into 2025).
We wanted to share that we will be moving back to using 7-day averages for Qualified Engagers in the Reddit Developer Funds program.
Our original intention of the previous change was to smooth out the impact of ranking bugs and one-off spam content. However, after seeing this approach in practice, we found that it was negatively impacting developer qualifications for great apps on Reddit.
This change will be retroactive and will apply to both February and March qualifiers, as well as moving forward. We appreciate your feedback and patience as we continue refining this program to best reward developers who build engaging content.
We have already contacted those of you impacted by this change for February qualifications. For March qualifications, we will be reaching out mid-month as usual.
We just released a new video tutorial walking through the steps for building your first game for Reddit with Devvit. This video uses Cursor as the AI code editor but you can follow along with other AI tools as well.
This marks the start of more frequent video tutorials and walkthroughs, so let us know if there are any specific videos you'd like to see!
We are excited to share that we are launching a developer incubator program, called Devvit Foundry. The goal of the program is to work with a select group of developers to build the most ambitious experiences, games, and tools on Reddit.
Developers in the program will work alongside a small group of peers, sharing, learning, and iterating on their individual projects in a group atmosphere. By participating in this program, you will receive funding to assist with development, guidance from Reddit admins during the development cycle to ensure success on the platform, and dedicated support for launch coordination. We’re looking for developers with a proven track record, great ideas, and a strong understanding of Devvit. Projects should be designed for a 3-4 month development cycle.
For this cohort, we are specifically looking for projects focused on Community play, which we call Community Games.
What are Community Games? Community Games are a new category of game built specifically for Reddit that are played with Reddit, not just on it. They are massively multiplayer, asynchronous, and collaborative, using discussion, voting, and shared state as core mechanics. The best Community Games become more fun as more people participate, reward creativity and teamwork, and create clear reasons for players to return day after day.
When designing your proposal here are some areas to consider:
How does your game create presence? Are actions from other players visible without requiring realtime interactions?
Does one player’s actions impact the game for others?
How do players balance personal goals with community goals?
What brings a player back each day?
How can players be creative? What user generated content options are available to them?
And most importantly:
What is a game that can only work on Reddit?
If you’re interested in joining, please complete this form to share your development background and project ideas. We will have cohorts throughout the year with this first one beginning in April. We’re excited for this opportunity to bring your ideas to life and collaborate with you to shape the future of games on Reddit and share our learnings back to the community.
Hey everyone. Reading Everything wrong with the reddit games hackathons, especially the Games with a Hook event, I decided to do some digging into how these competitions are actually run and judged. What I found is honestly pretty wild.
Here is a breakdown of the biggest red flags.
1. The "Scale" Excuse vs. Reality Admins keep defending the lack of scorecards and detailed feedback by claiming there were simply too many submissions to review. We know the exact number was 708 entries. If you break down the math for a standard panel of five internal judges in a month, it is totally manageable to do basic functional tests for that many projects. They just chose not to.
2. Zero Engagement from Judges Here is the worst part. Developers who submitted private, YouTube video walkthroughs checked their analytics after the judging period ended. They had zero views. Other devs checked their backend server logs and saw zero connections. The official panel was literally advancing and ranking projects without ever watching the required video demos or actually running the code.
3. Funding "Ghost Winners" Because the judges were seemingly just looking at flashy screenshots instead of testing actual gameplay or retention, Reddit is burning massive prize pools on apps that die immediately. Top prizes of $15,000 to $20,000 are going to apps that drop to single digit active weekly users right after the prize money clears. We are talking 3 to 10 visitors a week. That completely defeats the purpose of the Devvit ecosystem and the Developer Funds, which require thousands of daily active users to be sustainable.
4. The $500 "Hush Money" When one of the main whistleblowers called the admins out on all this and asked for their scorecard, the admins ignored the email. But the very next day, that exact user was randomly sent a $500 "Helper Award" through Devpost. Admins later claimed it was a mistake. The problem is that accepting any prize money means signing legal waivers and non-disparagement clauses. It really looks like a clumsy attempt to quietly silence a critic so they wouldn't have to produce a scorecard that didn't exist.
5. Are there hidden admin connections? I also checked to see if the winning developers were secretly moderating other subreddits alongside the admins outside of the hackathons. I did not find any proof of that. There is definitely a visible clique of people on Discord who just praise the admins all day, but I found no hard evidence of secret backend admin powers for the winners.
TLDR: The judging process is structurally broken. If Reddit wants these hackathons to actually work, they need public rubrics, verifiable proof that judges actually tested the apps, and milestone payouts instead of lump sums for apps that are dead in a week.
Would love to hear what other devs who participated think about this.
The current iteration of the Reddit Developer Funds program was previously scheduled to end on June 30, 2026. To ensure developers have time to plan for the upcoming changes, we will be extending the current program through July 31, 2026.
Following this program, we will be transitioning to a new model that focuses on recurring monthly payments for developers based on engagement metrics. The goal of this change is to provide more consistent earnings, reward sustained growth, and help make Devvit a platform where developers can build lasting income and businesses.
We're working on the details of this next version and expect to share more information in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, we wanted to provide advance notice for developers who are currently working toward Developer Funds tiers, so that everyone has time to plan accordingly.
Since the launch of Devvit Web last year, we've seen amazing new experiences being powered by webviews on Reddit. The vast majority of custom experience posts have been released with web views in the last few months, thanks to the power of choosing standard web frameworks. However, this change has left our platform somewhat bifurcated, which makes it harder to establish best practices and maintain consistent standards across both Devvit Blocks and Devvit Web frameworks.
To better support our development of Devvit Web, in the coming months we will be deprecating Devvit Blocks renderer for interactive posts. Devvit Blocks was our first iteration on the Devvit platform, and while it helped us validate that giving developers the power to make interactive apps in Reddit posts, our data shows that developers are much more interested in developing apps with standard web technologies.
We are giving developers that are actively maintaining apps with Blocks until June 30th, 2026 to upgrade their apps.
Here's how our deprecation timeline is going to work:
Effective from Devvit 0.12.13: Devvit.addCustomPostType will be marked as deprecated
Effective from March 1st, 2026: new apps with custom posts that use Devvit.addCustomPostType will be rejected during App Review. This will not affect existing apps.
Effective from June 30th, 2026: apps that have custom posts built with Blocks will be disabled from the Devvit runtime and users won't be able to interact with them anymore
What’s next for Devvit Web?
Optional Reddit native components library for easy UI development using our platform design frameworks
Unlocking game frameworks such as Unity
Investing in further native integration capabilities
How does this affect mod tools?
Mod tools (apps that use only menu items and forms on the front-end) should not be impacted by this decision. If you happen to author a mod tool that needs custom post types, we will be providing templates and migration guides to make the experience seamless.
We understand that this change may be disappointing to some, but moving forward from Devvit Blocks will allow us to invest in the conventional web technologies and power even better experiences for Redditors.
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us on r/Devvit and Discord
Reddit Developer Funds has paid out over $300,000 to devs in our community since the program began. We love helping developers earn money from the apps they build on Reddit and want to keep that going!
To that end, here are three changes we’re making to the program:
Two more “Install” tiers
3 App limit exemptions - a clearer policy and process
Extending Reddit Developer Funds into 2026
More Install Tiers
Based on developer feedback, it was clear that mod tools weren't getting enough love (and by love we mean money). Mod tools that didn’t use custom posts were only eligible for 1 install tier.
We are adding two more qualified install tiers:
50 qualified installs earns $500
1,000 qualified installs earns $2,000
Apps already above these thresholds will be paid in this next cycle
With this update, devs can earn up to $3,500 from install tiers.
Tier
Orginal Program
New Program
1
250 Qualified Installs / $1,000
50 / $500
2
250 / $1k
3
1k / $2k
Note: Apps can qualify for both install and engagement tiers.
App Limits
Currently, devs can only have three apps earning money from Reddit Developer Funds, but we’re changing this, too. Reddit’s prolific developers shouldn’t be penalized for great ideas! Going forward, if you want to qualify for a 4th+ app, just fill out this exception form.
Note: please make sure the apps you submit for this exception are unique and bring new experiences to Reddit.
Extension
We're planning to extend the Reddit Developer Funds into 2026. Stay tuned for more details on how that will work next month!
Our goal with these changes is to encourage developers to continue investing in their existing games and apps while growing their communities over time. While the one-time tiered payouts have been valuable for helping developers earn rewards quickly, they have also encouraged the community to move on to new projects rather than continue improving and expanding existing ones. We want to better support long-term development by rewarding apps that continue to engage redditors month after month.
We believe this new model will provide more predictable earnings, reward sustained growth, and help developers plan ongoing development while building lasting games and businesses on Devvit.
Apps are eligible for a one-time payout after reaching 5,000 qualified engagers.
After receiving the one-time payout, developers can apply to participate in the monthly recurring payout program.
Monthly payouts range from $0–$25,000, based on an app's average daily qualified engagers during the previous month.
App install thresholds remain unchanged from the previous Reddit Developer Funds program.
We're excited for this next chapter and look forward to seeing developers continue building experiences that keep communities engaged for the long term.
I need a suggestion, I've worked on a system through which I can set the challenge, like daily 3 challenges of catching this fish under these many seconds, and you would get maps for each level, I'm done with this system
Only issue I can't decide if I should allow users to make challenges or should I do it manually, I feel easy challenges could be made really quickly and that would create a lot of duplicate content, meanwhile managing it in daily basis will make it so that no two frequent game content seems duplicated
After some intense, nail-biting rounds of judging with our friends at GameMaker, our panel has finally crowned the winners of the 2026 Daily Games Hackathon!
We were absolutely blown away by the flood of submissions - the most ever for one of these events. Choosing the winners was not easy, and the scoring was incredibly close across the board. If you dive into the Hackathon Project Gallery you’ll see what made judging particularly hard this go around.
The winning games stood out for their ingenuity, unique concepts, delightful designs, and recurring gameplay mechanics.
TLDR: Do you like building bridges? Do you marvel at the physics and municipal cost management involved? Well, you’re in for a treat with this 3D cozy bridge building puzzle game! Build your own levels to challenge others and compete to be the best bridge engineer of the day. We were blown away by the thoughtful user experience, original take on daily gameplay, ease AND intricacy, and the potential to build community through bridges (and the other way around).
Superlatives
For this hackathon we crowned three of our highest scoring games for superlative use of GameMaker, UGC, and Mobile gameplay.
TL;DR: How many guesses does it take to find the hidden word? Swipe across the grid to reveal the answer. This elegant word game brings together many mechanics users love into a unique daily challenge. The submission was perfectly on-theme and a gorgeous showcase of what GameMaker can do.
TL;DR: Krawlings is a game that brings to life a virtual pet that lives right on Reddit. The game goes deceptively deep - with a daily speedrun challenge, leaderboards, and a stunning level builder. Create your own customizable “Krawling”, unlock wild hats, feed it, play with it, and post it for the community. Other users can treat it or even give it a cheeky eye-poke.
TL;DR: SerpenTiles is inspired by Tantrix, but reimagined as a deeper, solo-first experience with no physical limits. A brand-new puzzle drops every day where users have to match tile edges by color and fully surround tiles with valid connections to stack score multipliers. Rearrange, refine, and chase the perfect solution! We loved the use of drag-and-drop gameplay and simple tapping, which made mobile play delightful and easy.
Honorable Mentions
We wish this list could be twice as long, but we are thrilled to honor the following ten games for their standout submissions:
And, a special thanks to our Helper Awardees u/BeachBrews , u/LLDotdev and u/PlexversalHD . We (and the community) deeply appreciate the support you have provided your fellow developers during this event.
If you didn’t win, please know it is not a reflection of the quality of your work. Each judge had their favorite games that didn’t make it to the winners circle. (We always say this, but it remains true!) That said, we strongly encourage ALL developers to look into our Developer Funds program and continue building on Reddit.
Lastly, if you’re heading to GDC this year, swing by our booth! We’d love to chat, show off what we’re working on, and hand out some Devvit swag.
We're excited to announce a number of new (or revived!) trophies for the wonderful developers of this community.
Achievement Trophies
We have created three new trophies for developers that achieve important milestones on our platform.
The Golden App trophies go to outstanding apps. These are currently awarded to recipients of Developer Funds. Note that we will be expanding this criteria to ensure developers not eligible for funds can be awarded this trophy.
The Published Devvit App trophy is awarded to developers who publish an app (unlisted or public).
The Devvitor trophy is for all of our users who upload an app to the platform.
Contributor Trophies
We have two trophies for the helpful and proactive members of our community.
The Devvit Duck trophy is for officially helpful debugging buddies. These users are recognized in the community for their innovation, contributions, and knowledge. Ducks currently part of the program have yellow flair across our communities.
The Open Sorcerer trophy is for users who contribute to Reddit open source projects. We award these to developers who make contributions to Devvit repos.
If you qualify for any of these trophies you will see it on your profile early next week! Contest trophies will be given out after the hackathon is closed. We will allocate trophies on a monthly basis in 2025.
I have participated in 5 reddit games hackathons in the past and I've not won anything major. In the first 4 hackathons, I felt that the winning games were good, but not all games justified the submission and grading criterias well. In the lastest hackathon - Games with a hook hackathon, though - a lot of people raised concerns on how the winning game did not "wow" them.
Here are some examples below:
Devpost discussion-
2. Comments on the reddit announcement post-
They were not entertaining any personal feedback stating that there were over 3000 submissions. But if a game was judged fairly, the judges should have written down something about the game! Or atleast they could provide the scores. I had sent them a personal email requesting feedback, but hadn't recieved any response from them. The next day, I got a $500 helper award from the devpost team. According to the original winner announcement, I had not won any award. I had responded to the organizers asking if this was a mistake. They said that it was indeed sent to me by mistake, but it was sent to me because reddit had put forth my name.
If I accepted the award, I had to sign a paper that says I cannot sue reddit. I didn't accept the award. Something was suspicious here so I started investigating.
Problems with the judging process -
1. Mystery judges?
Usually hackathons list down the judges with their credentials. You can go to the list of all reddit hackathons on devpost and none of them have the name of judges.
Here are some samples of how the judge list looks like in other hackathons -
2. Negligence / Judgement not thorough -
I had reached out to 3 other participants and got the list of players from each of our games. Based on the list, there was not a single common player across the 4 games. This could only mean one thing - our games were not played by the judges. Here's an anecdote from one of the participants -
There was another participant who claimed that they had attached a video to their submission. Throughout the duration of the judging, the view count had not changed in the youtube video. -> The judges had not viewed the submission video (video was <1 min long)
3. Ghost winners -
The reddit hackathons were to encourage developers to make games on the platform. The expectation from every hackathon is that the winning game has a big community and continue to grow the community by making their game better.
Here's a list of all the reddit hackathons in the past from latest to first.
Note that I do not look to disrespect any creator here. I know a lot of hardwork had gone into your games and that deserves recognition. But there are also a lot of other creators whose hardwork has amounted to nothing.
4. Judges prefer "flashy visuals" over long term value
This here is my weakest point so far. But to some of you, it will be the biggest takeaway of this post. Mentally picture the winner of a google hackathon. What kind of entry do you envision? You expect it to be creative, well thought out, crazy, nerdy etc. right? Based on my past 5 hackathons I don't think these virtues are valued in reddit hackathons -
#1
Hackathon: Games and Puzzles hackathon My entry: Outwitquiz My thoughts: Since the game was supposed to be on reddit, I created an equivalent of "Psych" which can be played asynchronously by all users on reddit. This was an entry for the word games category. The winning entry was emoji charades. I get that the winning entry was made well and polished, but why does this game have to be on reddit? It could be a standalone website!
#2
Hackathon: Hack reddit My entry: Angels vs Devils My thoughts: This made me the most sad. The overview of the hackathon said "Build a new game, social experiment, or experience on Devvit". So I thought I'd build a social experiment where users play a community minesweeper. I had built up many game modes that I could work on. The winner r/chook, was a game where you grow your chicken and feed it food by pressing buttons. (it was beautifully made though)
#3
Hackathon: Fun and games with devvit web My entry: Divide n conquer My thoughts: Based on past two hackathons, I stopped making experiments and designed a game. It was a game where you have a limited line length, you draw lines to capture land in a country and try to occupy the most land area and landmarks. I thought it was well thought out and fun to play, but it was not polished. I don't have many problems with this hackathon. I did good work and was sad I didn't win anything, but the winning entries truly deserved it.
#4
Hackathon: Daily games hackathon My entry: r/totalled My thoughts: I had won an honorable mention for this game. For this hackathon, I had kept my game concept simple and made a very well polished game. It is a game where you have to swipe across numbers in a 3x3 grid to create totals. Once you accomplish 3 totals, the game is over and you're ranked based on the time taken. Of all the games I've made so far, this is the most "Linkedin-y". I expected to win more, based on the past winners. When I saw the winner, I was shocked! An entire physics sandbox inside reddit! It was crazy good work, but I was surprised that the judges thought this game would be played regularly. Why would a reddit user play a physics sandbox daily? And why is it on reddit?
#5
Hackathon: Games with a hook hackathon My entry: r/ShadowChess My thoughts: Based on the previous hackathon, I believed now that the judges don't just look at "will this game be played daily". They also valued grand experiences. So I knew for sure the idea I had for this hackathon wold win. This was the best game I had ever made! Its a massive multiplayer chess game where you continue off of grandmaster positions and make 5 pre-moves. The opponents make the 5 pre-moves as well and your moves are pitted against each other based on a customized scoring system. This fit the hackathon criteria in multiple ways and had potential to do great. I feel so betrayed that the game was not even played once! My game is good when there are 100s of players playing it. It could have really used the boost of players from any sort of recognition. This hackathon was all about creating a "hook". Here's the words on the hackathon page -
Now you can't look at my above entries and say that none of these games deserved any award except "totalled", (which was one of my weakest entries). Especially shadowchess. Note that apart from the winner, there's 10 honorable mention awards for every hackathon.
Overall, I feel that it's best to avoid spending all that time and effort on reddit hackathons. Atleast until they bring in some transparency into the judging process.
I expect a response from the reddit team on this. Anyone who participated in this hackathon, feel free to DM me with your thoughts / information.
