Building BrandQuest for the H0 Hackathon: Playable Ads Powered by Vercel and Amazon DynamoDB

I created this project for the purposes of entering the H0 Hackathon. #H0Hackathon

What I built

BrandQuest is a playable-ads platform where brands and creators can launch interactive mini-game campaigns, while players compete for rewards through scores, leaderboards, XP, badges, and participation history.

Instead of passive ads, BrandQuest turns brand engagement into a game loop:

campaign → play → score → leaderboard → reward → analytics

Why I built it

Most ads are skipped, ignored, or forgotten. But people willingly spend time playing games, competing for high scores, and collecting rewards.

BrandQuest explores what happens when advertising becomes interactive, measurable, and fun.

How it works

Creators can create branded game campaigns with rewards, difficulty, attempt limits, start/end dates, and game templates.

Players can discover live campaigns, play mini-games, submit scores, and appear on leaderboards.

Creators then get analytics from real engagement events, including attempts, players, scores, and leaderboard performance.

Tech stack

• Next.js
• React
• TypeScript
• Tailwind CSS
• Vercel
• v0
• Amazon DynamoDB
• Auth.js / Google OAuth
• Zod
• Server-side validation

Backend and AWS structure

BrandQuest uses Amazon DynamoDB as the primary backend database.

DynamoDB stores:

• users
• player profiles
• creator profiles
• campaigns
• game attempts
• leaderboard entries
• player XP and rewards
• creator analytics events
• custom game submissions
• admin review decisions

The app is designed so that AWS credentials stay server-side only. The frontend never receives DynamoDB keys, and all important score submissions go through backend validation before being stored.

Why DynamoDB fits

Playable ads can generate high-volume events:

• many players opening campaigns
• many game attempts
• frequent leaderboard updates
• analytics events for creators
• reward and badge updates

DynamoDB is a strong fit because BrandQuest needs fast reads/writes for campaign activity, scores, and analytics at scale.

Safety

Because BrandQuest includes rewards and scoreboards, the backend includes protections such as:

• server-side score validation
• max attempt enforcement
• duplicate attempt protection
• role-based access
• creator ownership checks
• player ownership checks
• safe custom-game review flow
• no arbitrary uploaded JavaScript execution

What I learned

This project taught me that a playable-ads product is not just a frontend idea. The real challenge is the backend structure: authentication, database design, validation, anti-cheat, leaderboards, analytics, and safe custom-game approval.

Final thought

BrandQuest turns passive ads into interactive campaigns where players engage because they want to, and brands get real measurable data instead of just impressions.

Built for the H0 Hackathon. #H0Hackathon