DEV Community: PRIYANSHU SINGH

I Built a Gamified EdTech App with Next.js & Supabase 🧠🔥

PRIYANSHU SINGH — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 03:33:53 +0000

What is Dheeyudha?
Learning is often seen as a chore. What if it was as addictive as an RPG or a multiplayer game?

Dheeyudha (Sanskrit for "War of Intellect") is a platform I've been building that completely reimagines how students practice and learn. It bridges the gap between a robust educational tool and an engaging, competitive multiplayer experience.

It is currently live as both a Next.js Web App and a React Native Mobile App.

🎮 The Core Philosophy: Gamified Learning
At its heart, Dheeyudha is about making studying competitive and fun. We threw out the boring multiple-choice worksheets and replaced them with:

1v1 Duels: Students can literally challenge each other to a "Duel". They answer questions in real-time, and the winner takes points and glory.
Weekly Leagues: A tiered league system (Bronze, Silver, Gold) where students rank up by earning points through daily practice and solving questions.
Streaks & Daily Goals: Inspired by Duolingo, but tailored for solving complex academic questions. Miss your goal? Say goodbye to your streak!
Factions (Schools): Students join "Factions" (their schools) and battle it out on a global map.
🛠️ The Tech Stack
Building a real-time, multi-platform app with complex game mechanics requires a solid architecture.

The Backend & Web App (Next.js & Supabase) I used Next.js (App Router) to build a unified web platform that serves as both the frontend for web users and the backend API for the mobile app.

For the database and authentication, Supabase was the absolute perfect choice.

Realtime: We heavily utilize Supabase Realtime for the 1v1 Duels and the global chat.
Row Level Security (RLS): Crucial for ensuring students can't cheat or edit other people's answers.
Postgres Triggers: Used to automatically calculate League points and streak bonuses on the database side without relying on heavy client logic.

The Mobile App (React Native & Expo) The mobile app is built with Expo & React Native. The beauty of this stack is how much code we can share mentally (and literally) between the Next.js web app and the mobile app.

We used Expo Router for file-based navigation, making the mental model identical to Next.js.
For push notifications (duel challenges, league demotion warnings), we integrated Capacitor Push Notifications to handle native Android/iOS alerts seamlessly.
💡 Key Technical Challenges

Real-time Duels ⚔️
Building a 1v1 real-time quiz system was tricky. What happens if a player disconnects? How do we ensure they both get the question at the exact same time? Solution: We used Supabase Broadcast channels. The server acts as the source of truth for the countdown, broadcasting the question_start and question_end events, ensuring clients are strictly synchronized.
The Universal "Question Card"
Questions in Dheeyudha aren't just text. They have images, varying difficulties, bounties (points), and different types (MCQ, Written, Match the Following). Solution: We built a massive, resilient QuestionCard component that handles all these states dynamically. It even includes a built-in proxy to bypass school/ISP network blocks on image domains!
Syncing Mobile and Web APIs
To keep things DRY, the Next.js API routes (/api/practice, /api/league) are consumed by the React Native app using standard fetch calls. The authentication tokens from Supabase on mobile are passed directly in the Authorization headers to Next.js, allowing seamless cross-platform auth!

🚀 What's Next?
Dheeyudha is still in rapid development. Next up, we are looking at:

AI Tutors: Integrating an LLM to explain why a student got a question wrong after a duel.
Boss Fights: Collaborative PvE events where an entire school teams up to solve extremely difficult questions over a weekend.
If you are interested in EdTech, Gamification, or just want to see how we are pushing Next.js and Supabase to their limits, check out our progress!

Would love to hear your thoughts on gamifying education. Have you tried building real-time mechanics in your apps? Let me know in the comments! 👇

I Built a Real‑Time Academic Battle Platform at 14 — Here's How

PRIYANSHU SINGH — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 15:06:54 +0000

Hey Dev.to community! 👋

I'm Priyanshu, a 14‑year‑old developer from India. For the past few months, I've been building Dheeyuddha — a platform where schools battle each other in real‑time academic wars. Think Clash of Clans meets education.

I wanted to share the journey, the tech stack, the failures, and what I've learned so far. Hopefully, this helps someone else building their first serious project.

🧠 The Idea
It started with a simple observation: learning apps are boring.

You answer questions, earn points, maybe keep a streak. But there's no real reason to come back except fear of losing that streak. I wanted to build something that felt like competition. Like pride. Like war.

So I asked: What if studying felt like a sport?

What if your school had a live scoreboard? What if you could challenge a rival school to a real‑time battle and watch the scores update as answers came in? What if winners could repost their victory screens to Instagram and flex on their friends?

That's how Dheeyuddha (धीयुद्ध — "War of Intellect") was born.

🏗️ The Tech Stack
I chose tools that would let me move fast and build real‑time features without managing servers.

Technology Why I Chose It
Next.js (App Router) React framework with SSR, API routes, and easy deployment
Supabase Auth, PostgreSQL database, and real‑time subscriptions out of the box
Tailwind CSS Rapid UI development without leaving my JSX
Framer Motion Smooth animations for the trailer and UI
Vercel One‑click deploys from GitHub
🔥 The Core Features

Real‑Time School Wars Two schools enter a war room via invite code. Students solve teacher‑verified questions, and the scoreboard updates instantly using Supabase Realtime.

js
// Subscribe to war room updates
const warRoomSubscription = supabase
  .channel('war-room')
  .on(
    'postgres_changes',
    { event: 'UPDATE', schema: 'public', table: 'war_rooms', filter: `id=eq.${warId}` },
    (payload) => {
      // Update score display in real time
    }
  )
  .subscribe()

Fair Matchmaking (The "War Weight" Formula) Inspired by Clash of Clans, I designed a formula that calculates a team's strength so that opponents are fairly matched.

Team Weight = (Average Class × 100) + (Average Points × 0.1) – (Number of Distinct Classes × 5)
Class × 100 – Class level is the strongest factor

Points × 0.1 – Points fine‑tune strength (1000 points ≈ one class step)

Distinct Classes × –5 – Small penalty encourages class diversity (your war rule)

If no match is found immediately, the search range expands over time — just like in Clash of Clans.

Never See the Same Question Twice I track every question interaction in a separate table. When a student requests a new question, the query filters out any they've already seen.

sql
SELECT q.*
FROM questions q
WHERE q.class <= :user_class
  AND NOT EXISTS (
    SELECT 1 FROM user_question_interactions uqi
    WHERE uqi.question_id = q.id AND uqi.user_id = :user_id
  )
ORDER BY random()
LIMIT 1;

Repost Feature (Built‑In Virality) After a war ends, winners get a victory screen with one‑click sharing to Instagram/WhatsApp. This creates a viral loop: win → share → friends see → join → war again.

🎬 The Trailer — Coded, Not Edited
I wanted a cinematic trailer but didn't have video editing software. So I built it in React using Framer Motion.

The entire trailer is a single Next.js page with:

Animated steps (intro → sign in → dashboard → repost → challenge → match found → outro)

A fake cursor that moves and clicks automatically

Real‑time typing effects

A "Match Found" explosion with pulsing glows

📉 The Struggles (Because It Wasn't Easy)

The Name Pivot
Originally, I called it Manthan. Then I discovered multiple companies and a government platform already using that name. I had to rebrand everything — codebase, logo, pitch. That hurt. But I learned: check your name early.
Reddit Bans
Tried promoting on Reddit. Got multiple accounts banned. Learned the hard way about shadowbanning and IP flags. Now I'm focusing on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Dev.to.
Loneliness
Building alone at 14 is isolating. Most people my age don't understand why I spend nights coding. But I've learned that the work itself becomes the company.
YouTube Algorithm
My trailer got 20 views in 24 hours. It's easy to feel invisible. But I've learned that consistency beats virality. I'm posting more Shorts and improving hooks.

🧠 What I've Learned

Ship Fast, Iterate Faster
My first war system was over‑engineered. I spent weeks on auto‑matchmaking before realising I could launch with invite codes and add complexity later. Start simple.
Database Indexes Matter
Early on, queries were slow. Adding indexes on foreign keys and frequently queried columns made a huge difference.

`sql
CREATE INDEX idx_war_queue_weight ON war_queue (team_weight);
CREATE INDEX idx_user_interactions_user_question ON user_question_interactions(user_id, question_id);`

Community > Code
I spent months coding in isolation. When I finally started posting on LinkedIn and engaging with founders, everything changed. Feedback, encouragement, even critique — all of it made the project better.
Your Age Can Be an Advantage
At first, I hid that I was 14. Now I lead with it. People root for young builders. They offer advice, mentorship, and opportunities. Don't hide what makes you different.

📊 Current Status
✅ Authentication (Supabase)

✅ War lobby with invite codes

✅ Real‑time score updates

✅ Question selection + opponent targeting

✅ Trailer (coded in React)

✅ Team weight formula designed

✅ Repost feature (win → share)

In progress:

🔄 Teacher verification flow

🔄 Auto‑matchmaking queue

🔄 Weekly reports + badges

🛣️ What's Next
Launch beta — I'm looking for students, teachers, and schools to test Dhiyuddha. If you're interested, drop a comment or DM me.

Improve matchmaking — Implement the expanding search range and fine‑tune the weight formula.

Monetization — Freemium model (Pro badges) and school tournament licenses.

Keep building in public — More posts, more transparency, more engagement.

💬 Questions for the Community
If you've made it this far, I'd love your honest feedback:

Does the stack (Next.js + Supabase) make sense for scaling real‑time features?

Any gotchas with Supabase Realtime at higher concurrency?

The gamification angle — is this actually useful or just another distraction?

What would you do differently if you were building this?

🔗 Links
Live beta: https://manthan-beta-c975.vercel.app/

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEzUVo3kE8I

GitHub: Not public yet (cleaning up), but happy to share specific code snippets

🙏 Final Thought
I don't know if Dheeyuddha will become big. But I do know this:

Every line of code taught me more than any textbook could. Every rejection taught me resilience. Every view — even 20 — taught me that someone, somewhere, saw what I built.

If you're a young developer reading this: build the thing. It won't be perfect. People might ignore it. But you'll come out the other side a different person.

Thanks for reading. Roast me, encourage me, or just say hi. I'm here for all of it.

nextjs #supabase #react #tailwindcss #realtime #edtech #buildinpublic #indianstartup #webdev

Hey guys, I need your support.

PRIYANSHU SINGH — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 11:40:51 +0000

It happened to pass almost a month since I created my blog.
It's best place for readers and I have added all necessary features but I need my first viewer.

I request you guys to visit it once and review it.
I'll be glad if I get even one review.
Thanks for your time
Link - https://ghoopstheblog.me

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PRIYANSHU SINGH — Sat, 05 Jul 2025 11:16:34 +0000

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I Built a Developer Blog Using Next.js App Router, Velite, and Firebase — Here's How

PRIYANSHU SINGH — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 11:51:41 +0000

Hey everyone! 👋

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been working on building my own blog — not with WordPress or a headless CMS, but from scratch using tools I enjoy. I wanted something fast, fully under my control, and fun to build.

The result? ghoops.me — a minimal blog for writing about AI tools, productivity workflows, and web dev insights.

🚧 Why I Built It Instead of Using Dev.to or Hashnode

Dev.to and similar platforms are great, but I wanted:

Full control over content structure
Markdown with MDX component support
Custom metadata (likes, views, author profiles)
A playground for trying out tools like Firebase, analytics, and SEO experiments

🧰 The Stack

Next.js App Router — for routing and static site generation
Velite — markdown-first content manager (a lightweight alternative to Contentlayer)
Firebase Firestore — to store likes, views, and author data
TailwindCSS — for a clean, mobile-first UI
Framer Motion — subtle page transitions
Supabase — used for tracking trending posts via page views

📚 Some Articles I’ve Published So Far

Here are a few posts you might like:

💡 Lessons I Learned

Firebase is great for micro features like likes and view tracking
Velite + MDX is powerful and intuitive for managing blog content
App Router in Next.js requires a bit of learning, but works well for static blogs
SEO is a long game — but you have more power when you own your platform

🙌 Your Feedback Is Welcome

If you have a moment, I’d love feedback on:

Blog performance (speed, responsiveness)
Design simplicity or readability
Any bugs or improvements you notice

You can check it out at ghoops.me — open to suggestions and collaboration!

🎯 TL;DR

Built a static developer blog using Next.js App Router, Velite, Firebase, and Tailwind. It’s SEO-friendly, fast, and fun to hack on. I’ll keep publishing articles around AI tools, indie dev workflows, and productivity systems.

Thanks for reading 🙌