Adding fun

It’s the day before the hackathon ends, and I’m having a moment of panic.

The technical stuff is done… but is it fun?

I’ve implemented all the technical requirements:

• ✅ Authentication system
• ✅ Payment processing
• ✅ Real-time leaderboard
• ✅ Production deployment and testing
• ✅ Custom domain
• ✅ Game difficulty settings
• ✅ Model integration from Vercel
• ✅ AI API calls
• ✅ Username system
• ✅ Referral program

Tons of features. Everything works. But here’s the brutal truth: the core game experience isn’t very fun right now.

The blank page problem

The game currently just opens a blank chat interface. That’s it. No guidance, no spark, nothing to trigger creativity or engagement.

Players probably end up asking the same boring questions over and over again, just crossing their fingers that the LLM will respond with something interesting. That’s not a game - that’s just… chatting with uncertainty.

The solution: remove decision fatigue

I need to implement something to spice this up, and I think I know what it is.

Like many successful chat applications, you shouldn’t burden users with deciding what to type first. That blank text box is intimidating. It’s too much cognitive load right at the moment when you want people to be excited and engaged.

The fix: Conversation starters.

Instead of staring at that intimidating blank text box, let’s give people a nudge in interesting directions. Prompts that make them think, laugh, or get creative right from the start.

Sometimes the difference between a boring app and an engaging one is just removing that first moment of “…now what?”