Side
Quest

Overview

The Pitch

The how-to video players see before the conference, in 26 seconds.

The App

• 

  Join

  Name, church, and a PIN. Others see only first name and church.

• 

  Home

  Your score, the next blind box, and one big button: meet friends.

• 

  My Code

  A personal QR that changes every 30 seconds. The bar counts down.

• 

  Quests

  Every way to score, with its points and your progress.

How You Play

Points per action. Check-ins pay the most at once, but meeting people never runs out: every new person pays again.

Proposed values. They get tuned after the first playtest.

One Scan

Meeting someone is the core loop. Here is what happens between two phones.

1. 01 · Show

   My Code

   The code changes every 30 seconds, so a screenshot goes stale fast.

2. 02 · Scan

   In-app scanner

   Opens the back camera and reads the code, on iPhone Safari too.

3. 03 · Check

   Server

   Refuses expired codes and scanning yourself. Each pair counts once, whoever scans whom.

4. 04 · Answer

   Icebreaker

   Both phones get the same question, like “Favorite food?” Each player scores when they type the other's answer.

⌖Only the two people see their answers. There is no chat, ever.

Three Days

Nothing should reward opening a phone during a talk, so the game pauses whenever a session runs.

• On
• Paused
• Off

1. Day 1Evening
   Intro

   Game intro on stage. Everyone scans the join QR together, then first connections.

2. Day 2Full day
   SessionSessionSession

   Meeting people, booths, hidden items, and a takeaway after each session.

3. Day 3Sunday service
   Results

   Final player and church results, prizes, and each player's Wrapped recap.

Schematic, not to scale.

How It Works

1. 01

   Phone-First Web App

   FastAPI and server-rendered Jinja pages on Railway. One QR to join, no app store, tested on the iPhone browser engine.

2. 02

   One Points Service

   Every award goes through one place that pays it once, even when two phones tap at the same moment, and logs it to an append-only audit trail.

3. 03

   Built for the Room

   Pauses during sessions, an usher console for help at the door, and a big-screen view that cycles leaderboards and takeaways.

4. 04

   Safe by Default

   No messaging, no email or phone numbers, no photo uploads. Personal QR codes rotate so screenshots can't be shared, and all player data is deleted after the event.

How the Team Builds

Most of the team are volunteers still learning to code. I set up the repo so they learn to build with AI coding agents, and the guardrails catch mistakes before they reach players.

1. 01 · Pick

   /pick-task

   Offers three pieces that are ready to build, soonest due first, then claims one so nobody builds it twice.

2. 02 · Plan

   Rule IDs

   Before touching a file, the agent shows a short plan that cites the written rules, like GAME-013.

3. 03 · Build

   Teaching mode

   After each change, the agent explains in plain words what changed, why, and which commands it ran.

4. 04 · Prove

   Phone check

   The agent checks every changed screen at 360px. A person then runs each test step on a real phone.

⌖One task, one branch, one PR. A person reviews every one before it merges.

1. 01

   One Rulebook

   AGENTS.md holds the rules for volunteers and their AI agents alike. The agent stops and asks before schema changes, auth, minors' data, point values, or a new dependency.

2. 02

   A Protected Plan

   Game rules, game numbers, and agent settings change only with my approval, enforced by code owner review on GitHub. Agents never approve or merge a PR.

3. 03

   Text Is Data

   The repo is public, so the agent treats issues, comments, and web pages as data, never as instructions.

4. 04

   Nothing Private

   No secrets, real attendee data, or database files ever get committed. Test data is obviously fake, like “Test Player 1.”

Built in the Open

Game rules, safety rules, and every change, written down so a volunteer team and AI coding agents build from the same plan.