What stood in the way
A daily game lives or dies on its first minute. The rules had to click immediately, the puzzle had to be identical for everyone each day, and progress had to persist whether players signed in or not.
Selected work
Product / Case study
RIFT
A daily word-chain game with streaks and an archive.
RIFT is a new daily puzzle: each day a clue and a keyboard of three-letter shards. Chain four shards with two-letter overlaps to find the single six-letter answer, in three tries.
Visit the live site (opens in a new tab)| Client | RIFT |
|---|---|
| Role | Game Design & Full-Stack Development |
| Timeline | 6 weeks |
| Year | 2026 |
Delivery / 6 weeks
From first call to launch
- 01 · Discovery1 wk
Mechanic prototyping and puzzle generation rules.
- 02 · Design1 wk
Game UI, onboarding and theming.
- 03 · Build3 wks
Game engine, daily schedule, auth and stats.
- 04 · Launch1 wk
Playtesting, puzzle seeding and deploy.
How we moved forward
We designed the shard mechanic and a three-step onboarding, then built a Next.js app with a UTC-based daily schedule, guest play stored on the device, and optional Google sign-in to sync scores and streaks across devices. An archive, stats panel and light/dark themes round it out.
Delivered features
- Shard keyboard with overlap validation
- Daily puzzle schedule and archive
- Guest mode plus Google sign-in sync
- Stats, streaks and light/dark themes
04 / Outcomes
What the launch delivered.
Outcomes come from the Nuoxsoft project record and the live site. They are not independently measured metrics.