How I Built a GeoGuessr Game for Super Mario Odyssey

Timexo — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 18:13:19 +0000

I wanted to build something different from the usual fan project.

Instead of recreating gameplay, I asked a different question:

How well do players actually remember the worlds of Super Mario Odyssey?

The result is OdysseyGuessr, a browser game inspired by GeoGuessr.

Players receive a screenshot from one of the game's Kingdoms and must place a marker on the correct location. Every meter counts.

The project includes:

Browser-based gameplay
Single-player with customizable rounds
Real-time multiplayer with a 5,000 HP battle system
Community-submitted locations
Admin moderation tools

One of the biggest challenges wasn't the gameplay—it was collecting interesting locations that were difficult but still fair.

Watching players confidently choose the wrong cliff or rooftop has been surprisingly entertaining.

If you're interested in browser games or Nintendo fan projects, I'd love to hear your feedback.

Play here:
https://odyssey-guessr.lovable.app

OdysseyGuessr is an unofficial fan project and is not affiliated with Nintendo.

I kept failing at YouTube thumbnails… so I built a thumbnail generator

Timexo — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 08:15:34 +0000

I run a small YouTube channel and upload pretty regularly.

The weird part?
Recording and editing videos was never the problem.

Thumbnails were.

I’d spend way too long trying to get them right — testing colors, changing text, moving things around pixel by pixel… and still end up with something that just didn’t perform.

Low CTR, low impressions.
Same story over and over again.

At some point I realized:

This doesn’t scale.

If you’re uploading consistently, you can’t afford to spend 1–2 hours on every single thumbnail.

So I started experimenting.

Not with design… but with automation.

The idea

Instead of manually designing everything, I wanted something simple:

describe the thumbnail idea in a sentence
get a result instantly
iterate fast

Basically treating thumbnails more like prompts instead of projects.

So I built a small tool for myself.

At first it was super rough.
But even the early versions saved me a lot of time.

What changed

The biggest difference wasn’t just speed.

It was iteration.

Before:

one thumbnail = a lot of effort
testing multiple ideas = annoying

Now:

generate multiple concepts in seconds
pick what feels right
move on

And surprisingly, some of these generated thumbnails performed better than the ones I spent hours on.

Not always, but often enough to notice.

Why I’m sharing this

I originally built this just for myself.

But after using it for a while, I figured other creators might have the same problem.

Especially if you’re:

uploading frequently
not a professional designer
tired of overthinking thumbnails

The tool

I cleaned it up and made it usable online:

👉 Click here and try it out for free

It’s still evolving, and I’m actively improving it.

If you try it, I’d genuinely like to hear what works (and what doesn’t).

Curious about your workflow

How are you handling thumbnails right now?

Still fully manual, or already using some kind of tools/automation?

DEV Community: Timexo

How I Built a GeoGuessr Game for Super Mario Odyssey

I kept failing at YouTube thumbnails… so I built a thumbnail generator